The Shift: Harris hits Michigan amid anger over Gaza policy

Vice President Kamala Harris is headed to Michigan today. The Democratic nominee is scheduled to make several appearances in the state this week.

Her visit comes amid a widening war in the Middle East and growing frustration among Arab-American voters over the United States government’s refusal to reel in Israel.

IfNotNow spokesperson Eva Borgwardt:

“The infuriating thing is that Kamala Harris could say now, on this trip [to Michigan], that she supports an arms embargo. But we have seen absolutely no sign that they plan to reverse course.”

My question is for Kamala Harris and the Biden-Harris administration: Do they want to win or not? Is Donald Trump dangerous enough, or not dangerous enough, for them to stop funding Israel as it bombs hospital and starves northern Gaza? The American electorate is furious as they continue to learn there are no red lines for this administration.”

Multiple polls show GOP nominee Donald Trump with a slight advantage in the state.

Two Detroit-based Arab-American groups, Arab American PAC and The Arab American News, recently decided to endorse neither candidate in the race. Emgage Action endorsed Harris but expressed “strong disappointment” with the Biden administration’s Gaza policy.

“We are in a moment where our community is suffering and hurting in more ways than we can count. We have also seen four years under a Trump presidency and what that did to our community, and the risks that come with that,” a spokesperson at Arab Americans for Harris-Walz told The Guardian. “We’re not saying that with a Harris administration there is no risk, but under a Trump administration, the risk is much higher. We believe it is a more favorable path forward for us here in the United States and in our home countries.”

Senior Harris campaign official to CNN: “We’re kind of doing our best to hold the ground or limit losses. We may not get all the votes you would have expected from previous cycles but they are going to be made up for when you’re thinking about path to victory.”

More from The Guardian:

Ultimately, the election in Michigan may be decided by events half a world away.

More than 100,000 people voted uncommitted in the state’s Democratic primaries in February in a protest against Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, as the Palestinian civilian death toll climbed into the tens of thousands. But the Uncommitted movement is now alarmed at the prospect of those supporters boycotting Harris if it delivers Michigan to Trump.

On Tuesday, the group’s co-founder Lexi Zeidan pleaded in a video on social media to not let that happen.

“As a Palestinian American, the current administration’s handling of this genocide has been beyond enraging and demoralising, but the reality is that it can get worse. Nobody wants a Trump presidency more than Netanyahu because that is his ticket to wiping Palestine off the map,” she said.

Zeidan’s warning fell well short of an endorsement of Harris but across Michigan, the vice-president’s campaign is counting on fear of Trump as much as enthusiasm for the vice-president to get her over the line.

Last week Rolling Stone ran an interview Arab American Institute President James Zogby. Here’s his response to a question about Michigan:

The Lebanese in Dearborn are mostly Shia from South Lebanon, because when Israel invaded in ‘78 and then in ‘82 intensified and expanded the area that they were occupying, two villages in south Lebanon emptied out to Dearborn. Today, the majority population in Dearborn is Arab American. The mayor’s Arab. The police police chief is Arab. The state rep. is Arab. The congresswoman is Rashida Tlaib. Many of the constituents are Lebanese who have deep attachments to Palestinians.

In this election, I think it [the expansion of Israel’s war into Lebanon] will either put an exclamation point on the outrage or depression — causing them either not to vote or to flip and vote elsewhere. 

And here’s his response to a question about whether the Arab voter shift to Trump is reversible:

That Trump vote — going to 42 percent — was an increase of 7 percent. But that 7 percent was soft. We asked the voters, if Harris were to demand a cease-fire, or if she were to say she would suspend arms aid unless Israel agreed to a cease-fire, her numbers went up from 42 to 62 percent. 

She regained a significant number of Trump votes that were the people basically voting for him as a protest against Democrats. The reaction I’m getting, when I go around the country and talk to people, is they want to punish Democrats. That’s not a smart political move, but that’s what people are feeling. And I don’t have an argument to make because they haven’t given us arguments to make.

Trump says he talked to Netanyahu days ago

It’s unclear if anyone in the mainstream media cares about this story, but Trump continues to tell people that he is talking to Netanyahu.

Last week the former president told Fox News that he spoke with the Israeli Prime Minister “like two days ago.”

“I can tell you that Bibi has been very strong,” Trump said. “He’s not listening to Biden.”

You might recall that PBS correspondent Judy Woodruff issued a public apology in August, after citing a story from Axios and Reuters about Trump pressuring Netanyahu to reject ceasefire talks.

Trump and Netanyahu denied the call took place. This prompted Woodruff to release the following statement:

I want to clarify my remarks on the PBS News special on Monday night about the ongoing cease fire talks in the Middle East. As I said, this was not based on my original reporting; I was referring to reports I had read, in Axios and Reuters, about former President Trump having spoken to the Israeli Prime Minister. In the live TV moment, I repeated the story because I hadn’t seen later reporting that both sides denied it. This was a mistake and I apologize for it.

The story quickly faded away, framed as the right-wing press as another example of anti-Trump bias in the media.

However, if Netanyahu really told Trump that he wasn’t listening to Biden days ago, then it feels like the press should revisit the topic as such chats would quite obviously violate the Logan Act.

One wonders what the reaction would be if Trump were talking to the head of a state that isn’t a close U.S. ally, while that leader was carrying out a genocidal assault and widening his war into neighboring countries.